3 Reasons WHY WOMEN (and even some Men) AVOID NETWORKING

While designing a leadership intervention for women professionals, a training need specifically identified by the MD of the organization was ‘Networking’. He had noticed that the men who are potential leaders tend to actively invest their personal and professional time in building their networks with people who matter. Women, on the other hand, try to rely just on themselves and seem to look at networking as a ‘time-waster’ or unnecessary activity. He felt that this acted as a setback for women since their visibility was lower as compared to men, in the circuits that mattered. The same training need came up multiple times over the last 3 years while discussing development inputs for women professionals, with various organizations, and hence, we decided to delve deeper into the topic.

Prior to co-founding Element78, Manik has played a variety of roles in the corporate world for over 15 years - in R&D, Engineering, Program Management and Learning & Development. Manik is trained and certified for her professional abilities through various organizations like Results Coaching Systems (Executive Coaching), ISB (‘Goldman Sachs 10K Women Entrepreneurs’ program), Kathalaya (story-telling), and ISABS (Organizational Development). During her stint with large organizations like Cummins India Limited and KPIT Cummins Limited, she grew through the ranks, eventually leading and enabling fairly large teams providing Engineering and Software solutions to customers across the globe